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View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoALEX HOLT | DISPATCH PHOTOSThere are so many pumpkins to choose from! Jacob Thomas, 5, left, and Spencer Wilkins, 7, find it hard to pick just the right ones at Jacquemin Farms in Plain City. Jacob’s mom, Lisa Thomas of Brown Township, sits on one he liked. Their hunt was on Sunday.

Ohio pumpkin lovers should have their pick of the festive orange gourds this year, despite heavy
midsummer rains that posed problems for some growers.

“We had some damage, but we have a lot of nice pumpkins right now,” said Kerry Sullivan, whose
family owns Jacquemin Farms near Dublin. “The supply is about normal.”

Jacquemin Farms is raising its pumpkin prices by 4 cents a pound this year after keeping prices
unchanged for three years. The price increase results from the rising cost of seed, fertilizer and
fuel needed to raise the crop, Sullivan said, not from bad weather.

“Our jack-o’-lanterns are 49 cents a pound,” up from 45 cents a pound the last three years, she
said. Specialty pumpkins are 59 cents a pound, and winter squashes, such as butternut and acorn,
are 69 cents a pound.

On the commercial side of the pumpkin equation, Nestle USA, maker of Libby’s-brand products,
also is raising its prices for canned pumpkin this season, spokeswoman Roz O’Hearn said in an
email.

This year, Nestle is suggesting retail prices of $2.19 for a 15-ounce can of Libby’s Pure
Pumpkin, up from $1.99, and $3.29 for a 29-ounce can, a dime more than before, O’Hearn said.

Ohio consistently ranks No. 3 among states in pumpkin production. Last year, Ohio produced 174.2
million pounds, up 55 percent from 2011, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Last year’s crop was worth $23.3 million.

While Ohio grew 14 percent of the nation’s pumpkins last year, Illinois grew 45 percent and led
the nation. (California was a distant second in production at 15 percent.)

Pumpkins are grown primarily for processing as food, according to the University of Illinois
Extension. Only a small percentage are grown for ornamental sales through you-pick farms, farmers
markets and retail stores.

This year, too much rain at peak blooming times caused problems for Ohio pumpkin growers,
especially those in northern Ohio, said Brad Bergefurd, an Ohio State University Extension educator
in southern Ohio.

Much of the resulting root rot came from Phytophthora blight, “a very serious disease caused by
a fungus-like pathogen that is also called a ‘water mold,’” said Sally Miller, an OSU plant
pathologist. “The disease has been severe in many areas in Ohio and elsewhere.”

Pumpkins are very susceptible to the disease, which cannot be treated with commercial
fungicides, unlike other pumpkin pests, such as powdery mildew, Miller said.

Some regions are reporting a 30 percent loss of the crop to water mold, said Miller’s colleague
James Jasinski, an OSU Extension educator.

The rain itself also cut pumpkin yields.

Bees “do not like to fly in the rain; therefore some of the female blooms were not pollinated
during those long wet spells,” Bergefurd said.

Jacquemin Farms, which sells picked and pick-your-own pumpkins, lost about 15 percent of its
15-acre crop to flooding in late July. However, plants that survived put out good-sized pumpkins,
said Sullivan, who has lined up a couple of suppliers in the unlikely event that her farm runs
short.

Steve Polter, who grows 180 acres of pumpkins at his Polter’s Berry Farm in Fremont, tells a
similar story.

“We got some spots in fields that drowned out,” said Polter, who sells exclusively to wholesale
accounts, such as farmers markets, grocery stores and garden centers in several eastern states.

“But overall, our yields are higher on the spots that didn’t (die), and that seems to be making
up for it,” he said. “We’re having a decent year.”

David Schacht, co-owner of Schacht Family Farm in Canal Winchester, grew 4 acres of pumpkins
this year.

“We’ve got some bigger ones, 60- to 70-pounders, for $20 to $25, all the way down to small ones
for $1,” said Schacht, who with his wife, Lisa, scaled back operations at their 120-acre vegetable
farm this year.

“People don’t really get serious until the first week of October,” said Schacht, who sells both
picked and you-pick pumpkins.